


Les mille et une nuits

by andloawhatsit



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M, Growing Old Together, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Post-Canon, Printing Presses, Recovery, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 08:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11893548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andloawhatsit/pseuds/andloawhatsit
Summary: Abigail Ashe grows up, buys a printing press, and finds a man she thought she'd never see again.





	Les mille et une nuits

 

**Calamity and contemplation — The Widow Hawkins — A storm and a ghost— The country’s moral proscriptions**

When left to herself (a carriage ride alone, for instance, a sleepless night or belligerent ague) Abigail Ashe often fell to contemplating the division between the girl she had been and the woman she had become. Had that line been drawn as late as the shot that killed Lady Hamilton; as early as her first step onto the _Good Fortune_ , yet ignorant of the lives to be lost because of it; or as late, even, as her first morning as a lady of independent means, when she had stooped at her bedroom window to look out over the lawn at Rosewood Park, and realized that if she truly desired it, she might buy a printing press? Was she culpable for all that had happened, for boarding the _Good Fortune_ , clinging to life; was Mr. McGraw, in his bloody pursuit of vengeance; or was her father, for betraying his friends? If Peter Ashe had not so conspired, Mr. McGraw and Lady Hamilton would not have been present in Nassau to save her, yet if he had acted honourably, he would never have left England, and she would not have needed rescue. Ifs enough to drive her mad. 

And when she thought of madness, she thought of Lord Hamilton, a man of whom she remembered very little beyond his kind face and that he had once knelt to speak with her, not loomed above as others did. To imagine that kind man trapped in Bethlem, there to anguish and starve while visitors gaped (as she herself had done to the poor creatures, in her attempt to find him) disturbed her deeply, and she craved to loose her fury at every Englishman standing by while his fellows suffered so. (Indeed, she had done, raged at cruel, absurd Dr. Williams in his silly wig and frivolous coat, and precipitated her banishment home to Rosewood and indeed, her present calamity.) Yet she herself would have stood by, if she had never sailed on the _Good Fortune_ , never set foot in Nassau, never seen all that she had. If and if and if. 

Now a woman of eight-and-twenty, with many acquaintances but few friends and confidantes, she held all this within herself: she might sometimes forget the burden, she had carried it so long, but in times of solitude it pressed upon her as though fresh.

It pressed upon her then, in the parlour of a shabby coaching inn some miles out of Bath, where she shivered in the chill of a wet spring night. The Admiral Benbow consisted of a handful of rooms and a smoky fireplace, and a driving rain beat furiously against the windows and dripped steadily into crockery set on shelves and in corners, but a smoky fire was as warm as a clear one and the proprietress was kind. A bright-cheeked, poor, and friendly widow by the name of Hawkins, she was no more than a few years older than Abigail herself and by lamplight cleaned and bandaged a long scrape on Abigail’s forearm and matching gash on her brow. Abigail winced, but had at least come off better than the poor horse: the beast had broken its leg stumbling on the dark and pitted road, stranding herself and the driver, an irritable little thumbprint of a man by the name of Harrison. He had a right to be irritable, she could grant, having been obliged to shoot half his livelihood in the head, but so did she: he had not only stranded them, but set them off-course as well, and while his lamed horse screamed and the other snorted and reared, he had feared offending Abigail’s womanish sensitivities until she was tempted to snatch his blunderbuss and deliver the animal herself. Worse still, when the deed was done at last, he had with no great dignity thrown his cloak about his shoulders and taken the reins and his leave (so much for his concern for the fairer sex), leaving Abigail to measure the Benbow against cold comfort on the road on such a night. Yes, when all was said and done, she found the inn altogether amenable.

“I’ll bring you some tea,” said Mrs. Hawkins, and patted her uninjured arm. “I’ve sent a man to fetch your trunk from the road, it ought to be alright, and tomorrow we’ll see about writing to your people.”

Abigail thanked her, but inwardly stewed. Custom was uncommon beyond the inhabitants of the village nearby and by Mrs. Hawkins’s reckoning, a regular stagecoach similarly so. Any coach passing by was not likely “more than once or twice in a week” since a new turnpike trust had made entirely more agreeable a route to Bath that excised the Benbow altogether, and neither Mrs. Hawkins nor any acquaintance of hers had a horse they were willing to sell, nor even let, that Abigail might dare to ride on alone; and though the locals, with some cajoling, admitted to having heard the name of Rosewood Park, figuring it was perhaps 30 miles distant, she hardly relished setting out on foot. How her head throbbed. She had no great desire to reach Rosewood, but nor had she any wish to be trapped at the Benbow for God knew how long, among God knew what kind of people. When Mrs. Hawkins had made no remark on the manacle scars at her wrists, Abigail had not known whether to greet her silence with relief or alarm. 

She sighed again, and forgetting the gash, rubbed her forehead: barely scabbed over, it painfully reopened at her touch, and as she dabbed it gently with her handkerchief, she took stock. She was overdue at Rosewood, true, but lucky to have taken no more grievous hurt from the accident, as she had been to avoid robbers and poachers, and to retain her trunk. Moreover, it had been sensible to take her leave of town for the present. Mr. Lowell had fretted like a hen after hearing of her set-to with Dr. Williams, wanting to fold up and move the press that very night, so that Abigail had been obliged to put up her hair, fetch out her breeches, shirt, and coat, and calm him over two hours and penny coffee at Nando’s. No need to fuss, she insisted, even while he worried further that someone at the coffeehouse would discern that she was not, in fact, a man, but they at last agreed: removing was unnecessary, particularly so soon after the last time, and although Dr. Williams had no good reason to connect Lady Ashe with the press's operations (namely the _Proceedings of the Utopian Senate_ , but also — significantly — various tracts critical of the asylums), since Parliament was not sitting, a sustained silence could do at least no harm. She had set out with Mr. Harrison the next morning having barely slept a wink, and stranded at the Benbow, though taxed with both his and Mr. Lowell’s nerves, and with little patience left, she found that even she could not sustain her anger indefinitely. Mr. Harrison had been a fool to drive so recklessly at night, but it had been her uncle’s decision to engage the man to convey her from London to Rosewood unmolested, and she could not fault his inclination to flee her uncle’s wrath.  She brought her hand back to her forehead, but stopped herself in time, embarrassed by her own sulkiness when she had both time and money, and her only problem, beyond the risks of the road, was patience. Measuring every experience by her girlhood, she was not afraid. She had survived the _Good Fortune_ , kidnapping, sedation, imprisonment, the sacking of Charles Town; certainly, framed against these, a thing so petty as gossip or her uncle’s disfavour held no power to terrify, and though as a woman, she was largely without power, as a wealthy one she was not without means, and she had long done her best to offset the former’s deficit with the latter’s surplus. Yet still her mood persisted. _Get a hold of yourself, girl_ , she thought. 

Mrs. Hawkins’s return with a slice of meat pie and tea in a chipped pot had just pierced her melancholy when a gust of rain and wind swept a new guest through the outside door.Abigail averted her eyes, not wanting to draw attention, but Mrs. Hawkins visibly cheered and showed the man to a seat by the tussive fire, shooing away a grumbling greybeard — “it’s wet as the devil while you’ve been warm inside all day; for pity’s sake, shift” — and brushing crumbs from the upholstery. “We thought we’d seen the last of you, Mr. Manderly. How good it is to welcome you out of such a night.”

_Manderly_. Abigail stiffened against the wave of memory the name evoked. In the years since their meeting she had found no account of Mr. McGraw’s crew beyond the purely sensational — eating human flesh, calling upon the devil as they set on a prize, putting a hundred men to the sword in a matter of moments, and the like. Apart from Lady Hamilton, whose body she had seen with her own eyes, and her knowledge of Lord Hamilton’s fate, her once allies might have tumbled from the edge of the world. When the news that Eleanor Rogers had died, with her unborn child, in the Spanish siege of Nassau was whispered to Abigail in a London salon during Woodes Rogers’s trial, the blow had struck her dumb: although her spirit had agitated to defend Eleanor’s character, she could not bring herself to further sensationalize the woman’s memory. _Yes, I knew Eleanor Rogers, Eleanor Guthrie then; she gave the pirate Charles Vane her body to save my life, to save Nassau._ What good would such remarks have done? 

Another door crashed on its hinge, and a small boy, Mrs. Hawkins’s son, thundered in from the kitchen. James was his name, Abigail thought, and another pang tweaked her nerves her at the thought of Mr. McGraw while Jim Hawkins, more than three-quarters gangly limbs, threw himself at the new arrival with a cry of joy that made Abigail twist in her chair to watch them. “Billy, you came back!”

Abigail clutched the edge of the table, her mouth gone dry. The man — Mr. Manderly, Billy, a ghost, _her_ Manderly — shucked his damp scarlet cloak, which Jim accepted as a Papist might a saint’s relic, and pulled his wool cap from his own head to tug it down over the boy’s, where it slipped past his eyes, much to his flushed delight. 

“Get on with you,” said Mrs. Hawkins, laughing and tugging her son away. “Hang that cloak and ask Mary about a slice of pie for Mr. Manderly.”

“William will serve, as I’ve said,” said the man. Billy Bones.

Watching from her shadowed corner, Abigail saw Mrs. Hawkins flush with mingled embarrassment and pleasure, and was surprised by her own flourish of disdainful jealousy that the silly woman should misinterpret Billy’s disinterest in English niceties as familiarity, even flirtation. She shook her head at the thought: how could she presume to know him any better?

“Oh, I couldn’t —“ Mrs. Hawkins did not explain what she could not do, but hurriedly led her son away. Billy laughed to himself as they went, though without malice. 

Without waiting on an invitation, or the faltering of her will, Abigail rose and joined him at the fire. “Mr. Manderly?” A voice in her mind mocked her for a little fool, prim and superficial: he would not remember, he would not care. 

He eyed her quizzically, without recognition, but she knew him at once: even unshaven he looked much as he had on the warship a decade before. She had sketched his face, so she would not forget. “Mistress?” He was amused, or at least willing to be.

She swallowed, and leaving off titles said, “My name is Abigail Ashe. We were acquainted, some years ago.” His eyes widened, and the murmur of the parlour, the sweep of wind and rain outside and the _drip, drip, drip_ as the crockery filled, indeed all sound external to their two selves, fell away. Perhaps he did not remember. 

But no: he said, “Abigail,” and all questioning had left him. “My god, so you are.” A smile broke wide across his ruddy face. 

She nodded, suddenly and surprisingly overcome.

“Abigail, my God, I —”

Jim Hawkins returned, then, with a large slice of meat pie plated in one hand and a mug in the other, and with deep concentration, set both on the table at Billy’s elbow. Abigail was thankful for the disruption that she might gather her thoughts, as she was that the son had returned and not the mother, who would likely have had more questions (and, though it was an uncharitable thought, a personal interest), while Billy thanked the boy and flipped him a coin. When they were alone once more, he said, “I’d have thought to see you back at the tavern in Nassau before a place like the Benbow. Will you sit?”

She sat, and gestured at her bandaged arm. “I had been in London, but was mislaid, no thanks to the fool of a coachman who brought us to grief. Are you a — sailor, still?” She cursed herself for stumbling over the word “pirate,” but Billy was on a different tack altogether. 

“Unusual to travel alone,” he said. “Dangerous. And dear.”

She sighed. “My uncle was eager to have me at home, but less so to be burdened with a disliked niece and slow travel, and so left me to a hired coach. I would not have minded, but for Mr. Harrison’s propensity for unskilful navigation and that he drove his beasts hard.” She felt her brow dip, heard her voice harden. “Indeed, the longer I may keep away from Rosewood, the better.” She would not have been so open with one of her own set, yet she opened her soul to William Manderly. What a strange pair they made.

“I won’t pry, then,” said Billy, cordial. “I’m still a sailor, as I’ll always be, though ashore for the time being. My interests were more mercenary. Whether you had a husband, for instance.”

She started, but managed to say cooly, “I am not, nor showing any signs of succumbing to the institution.”

Billy took a swig of beer. “And why should you, a woman of fortune.”

Abigail smiled behind her hand.

“Do I amuse you? Am I classless?”

“You’re just as I remember, that’s all.”

“Like a zoo animal? A lunatic on display?” 

The thought of Thomas Hamilton flared in her mind. _The shackles, the dripping walls, the stink and the screams._ “Passionate,” she said, pushing the terrible images away. _Those wretches chained like bears; pleas for aid she could not answer._ “Proud. Intelligent. You test me, sir. You’d like to provoke me, but it shall not be done.”

He drank again, then put his mug down and set to his pie. 

“I don’t believe in dissimulation,” she said. “ I make no pretence: I’m glad to find you living, and I’ve thought of you often since our paths diverged.”

“So you’re not married.” He swallowed. “I’m coming at it all crossways, you won’t believe me, but I’m as glad to find you well.”

“I’m not,” she said. “And I do believe you. Dishonesty, with a dishonourable purpose, at least, wouldn’t suit you; a cruel lie would show in your physiognomy.” 

“You rank lies, the kind and the cruel?” Billy looked away from her into the fire; perhaps he thought she would read his face. Around them the room had emptied; they were all but alone. He put out his hand, then faltered. “I’ve no wish to insult you.”

“I am not insulted.”

Looking up, he said, “Your face,” and reached out to touch it, to brush back her hair. The gesture was simultaneously so presumptuous and so welcome that Abigail caught her breath. He perceived fear and flinched, embarrassed, and she snatched his hand before he could take it back. All in a matter of moments.

“The horse took it worse than I,” she said. “Darling, I am not insulted, nor afraid.”

“Am I your darling now, already?” Though Billy’s tone was light, Abigail was well-acquainted with fear and felt its presence haunt his words.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sorry if it alarms you. I haven’t lain awake panting for you, if that’s what you’re wondering, but I have thought of you often, prayed for you, wished for you.” She grimaced. “Oh! Look at your face, your eyes so wide. I am sorry. But we might die tomorrow: I must not waste time.” 

“Sensible, for a fine lady,” said Billy, thoughtful, as though he addressed only himself. “How long will you stay on at the Benbow? It’s a fine place, really. Little known, but secure for it. I prefer it when I pass this way. The mistress and her boy, they’re fine people.” He had not pulled back his hand; the fire was down to embers; Mrs. Hawkins would return soon. Perhaps she had already seen them, but shied away.

“I don’t know,” said Abigail. “Mr. Harrison has gone off with my fare, though I have some means and shouldn’t begrudge him. I thought I might walk, though I’m hardly fitted. I shall see what the morning brings, I suppose.” She had gone on longer than intended, and blushed. “And yourself?”

Billy ducked his head. “I’m to London.” He was silent then, his errand clearly personal. 

“I wish I was,” said Abigail, the words bursting from her. “But I’m to my aunt’s house, as I said. Rosewood Park. Rather distant from anywhere of note.” 

“Your father had a home, surely?”

“Oh, Rosewood,” said Abigail, dismissive, “but it will never be mine. My cousin Peter is the heir; ’twill be his.”

“I despise this country,” said Billy, mildly, a man secure and confident in his convictions. “For years as a boy, I dreamed of coming back, and now… To what? When I was as honest a man as I have ever been, I’d have hanged in a flash.” He withdrew his hand. “Will you come to my room, Abigail Ashe? No dissimulation, as you said.”

Her smile bloomed. “You may come to mine, I think, for Mrs. Hawkins swears she has given me her best.” She meant to accommodate their comfort, but feared she seemed conceited instead. “At the top of the stairs, to the right,” she added, weakly. “If you would…”

“You go ahead. I shall follow, carefully of course.” He shook his head, a wry smile on his face. “In accommodation of this goddamned country’s moral proscriptions.”

She stifled a laugh and away she went, aches and pains forgotten, though she jumped when Mrs. Hawkins appeared in the passage, a heavy woollen shawl wrapped about her shoulders.

“You’re alright, miss? You have everything you need, and no trouble?” She peered anxiously down the stairs.

“Everything and more, Mistress Hawkins, thank you.” _Wipe that foolish smirk from your face, Abigail, you horrid girl,_ she thought, and wondered how long might be the proper period of waiting before effecting such a liaison as the one she intended — dear God, the one she intended! But it had been ten years already. Surely they had waited long enough. 

“Miss, will you be needing help with your stays?”

_Damn._ There was no way round it: she could give no credible explanation for a refusal. “Yes, thank you. That would be very kind.” She hoped Billy would have enough sense to hold off until the woman had gone. Surely he would. Mrs. Hawkins showed her to her little room. “’Tis only jumps,” said Abigail, “for travelling.”

“I don’t blame you, miss,” said Mrs. Hawkins, loosing the ribbons. 

“If I am obliged to leave my trunk, would you keep it for me, until I could send for it? I would credit you for the service, of course.”

“Certainly, miss. We have done for Mr. Manderly, more than once, he away to sea. But surely the coach will be able to take you and your trunk, when it comes.”

Abigail avoided the unspoken question; her mind had run ahead of her mouth, imagining walking on with Billy. Foolish, foolish. “Mr. Manderly, you say? That man in the parlour this evening?” She thought her voice did not waver. 

“Yes, he,” said Mrs. Hawkins. “If all my customers could be like him, I’d count myself very lucky. Pays on time, never over-oiled, and steady as a clock.” She hesitated, tugging the cotton-padded silk from Abigail’s body, then setting it gently on the bed. “Alas, he puts the sea into my boy’s head, but I suppose there’s no helping that: his father was a sailor. Died whaling in Greenland.” 

“I’m sorry,” said Abigail, sincerely, and on some strange impulse she turned, too familiar by half, and pressed Mrs. Hawkins’s hand. “Yours is a fine establishment, and I’m so grateful for your help.”

Mrs. Hawkins blushed with pleasure and said, stammering, “I’ll away, then, and see to Mr. — to the parlour.” She flushed further, and slipped out the door. Abigail, down to her shift, sat on the bed. 

Her room, so small it was consumed almost entirely by the narrow bed, was lit by a single candle, set in a dish on nightstand next to a half-filled basin, and as she waited she watched its shadows flicker on the wall until Billy, some interminable period later, joined her.

“I heard voices,” he said, “and thought it best to wait.”

“The lady of the house,” said Abigail, who was, despite what she intended for their meeting, embarrassed to be sitting in her shift with Billy fully clothed. “Making good her offer of assistance with my jumps.”

“She arrogates to herself my own interests,” he said, grinning, then sobered suddenly and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m well, Abigail. No pox and the like. I wouldn’t… Do that.”

“Thank you,” said Abigail, sincerely. She rose, sidled past him in the cramped space, and turned the key in the door.

“You have fucked before?” He winced. “Sorry. Done this before?”

She nodded, then tilted her head. “Why? Have you?”

He snorted. “Fair enough. And yes.” He brushed back his hair once more. “I am afraid I’ve made you into something, a fancy. I am not the same.”

She brought her palm gently to his cheek; the distance between a caress and a blow was nothing but a show of force: no, it was everything. “You needn’t be the same. You’re here; that’s enough.” She lowered her hand to his lap. She was not afraid.

Billy pressed his mouth to hers.

 

**A memory — Homesickness — An opportunity missed — Land!**

Lady Hamilton was shut up with Mr. McGraw, strategizing in anticipation of the warship’s imminent arrival at Charles Town. It was a rare moment of privacy for the two, and Abigail had set her mind to wondering whether they were lovers, something she suspected but had not been able to prove. The rumours at home said so, certainly, but what good were they? In any case, to speculate on her friends was better than to think on Charles Town. Neither it nor the memory of Rosewood Park felt like home, and while in the fort’s cells the fear of remaining Vane’s prisoner had surpassed her desire to linger, neither the prospect of reunion with her father nor the risk of remaining with the pirates seemed to temper her curious reluctance to leave the ship. But then, she knew nothing of Charles Town,nor hardly of her father, who she had not seen since she was a little girl, while nearly every living soul who had survived exerting himself to protect her was presently aboard the very ship on which she now stood. She looked across the water and saw nothing. 

A voice sounded behind her. “I’ve never set foot in the New World.” Then, rueful, “I suppose I won’t yet, if all goes to plan.”

“Will it, do you think?” Aside from her inborn loyalty to Lady Hamilton and Mr. McGraw, she liked Billy Bones best, and next, though in an altogether different manner, Mr. DeGroot, with the small turtled inked in blue beneath his ear. Billy looked torn between deceit and honesty, and she interjected before he could speak. “I will do all I can to protect you, all of you; to defend you to the governor.” She added, “However small that contribution may be. I merely wondered your opinion.”

“Poor odds,” said Billy, resting his elbows on the wood, leaning beside her. “Only a fucking fool would lay a penny on them, since you ask. But we follow Flint” — he grinned, rather a death’s head — “so we’re a ship full of ‘em.” He did not look abashed by his language, nor even as though he’d taken notice, for which she was glad. 

“What do you do when you miss your home? Kensington, I mean.”

He shrugged. “I accepted years ago that I couldn’t go home. That to do so would be beyond my power, beyond what’s possible.” He drummed his fingers on the wood, looking out at the water. “Do that, and there’s no home to miss.” He shifted, drawing some infinitesimal measurement closer. “Do you miss England?”

“I shall miss this place,” said Abigail, blushing furiously when Billy gave a brittle laugh.

“This place? Flint’s company? God, I wish I could be free of it!” He must have caught sight of her face, for he said, “I didn’t mean — that is, I don’t mean to mock you, Abigail, I…” He swayed, leaning closer again, and Abigail turned her face to him, waiting, hoping…

“Land!”

 

**An opportunity seized — The narrow bed — An unrequited attachment — A question of fate — Journey’s start**

Billy pressed his mouth to hers, then said, “I wish I’d kissed you on the day we dropped anchor in Carolina harbour. All that happened after… I coveted that fancy like a true memory.”

She felt more than heard his sharp intake of breath as her fingers found his prick, and she held his gaze as she touched him, felt him grow hard with her touch, watching not only because she longed to see him, but because she also feared his rejection. Despite her own feeling, shocking desperate as it was, she was unable to suppress the fear that his desire was little more than a desire to sully what he had imagined of her purity. He would despise her in the end, think her low, and —

“Abigail,” he said, and pressed forward to kiss her again, to put his strong arms around her and pull her close in disregard of his own pleasure. “What is this, what we do? You can’t know how I’ve missed you.” 

She thought he did not mean the deed itself, and had no answer. The next was fumbling, him to loosen his neck handkerchief and shuck his shirt and linen trousers, and her to shiver in her shift. His mouth was on hers, his tongue against her own, and his broad, rough hands stroked her sides, pushing her shift past her breasts as though he wanted to see her entirely bare.

She had stilled; so did he. “Have I hurt you?”

She shook her head. Past lovers had been content to breach her skirts and there’s an end to it, and she had been content to let them, and she told Billy so, hoping he would not be appalled. 

He was not. “I’d like to see you,” he said, and kissed her again. “If you’ll let me.” She nodded. “And I’ll do the same. Fair’s fair.” He pulled off his shirt, Abigail wriggled out of her shift, and they watched each other a moment, wary. His body bore the marks of a violent life: the pucker of a bullet wound,a weave of stitches, the tight-drawn flesh of a healed-over sabre slash; these drew attention, though not entirely, from his nudity, the flushed curve of his prick over his belly, while Abigail had nothing to hide behind. 

“Kiss me,” she said, but rather than wait on him swept forward herself — kissed his mouth, his bared throat, his chest. He kissed her mouth again, and laid them down in the narrow bed, kissed her breasts, her belly, pressed his face between her thighs. She cried out in surprise. 

He looked up, questioning, and in the low light his lips shone wet. 

She nodded, and he ducked his head again, set his mouth against her secret parts. He stroked her thighs as he worked, slowly, steadily, though her breaths came faster even so. She stifled a little moan, biting her tongue, and again when he wet his fingers and reached up to stroke her breasts, tease her nipples. “Billy,” she said, a whisper, a gasp, “I—“ Her pleasure peaked and rippled through her, a pulse from her toes upward. She stroked his hair, breathing through her own tremors, waiting for him.

But he lifted his head. “I won’t,” he said. “If you’re afeared of a child, I…“

“I am not afraid,” said Abigail, and curiously, stupidly, she was not. 

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then drew over her once more, kissed her, and she shifted, welcoming him. He began to move. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “I was in agony and I hardly knew it, until…” He pressed his face against her shoulder, gave a muffled groan when she bent her legs to curl around him, clutch at him. “Where I was, I had — occasion for much — reflection,” he said, gasping. 

Abigail pressed her heels against the small of his back, set her arms around his neck, sought to keep him close. 

“It was you,” he said. “I missed you.”

She held him against her chest as his body tightened, then released, his self spent. She held him there still. Could she keep him awake with stories, keep him near? Turn this night into a thousand? She did not want to let go.

 

At dawn, she sat on the bed with her legs over the side and her feet flat on the floor, while Billy stood at the door with his hand on the knob. 

“Shouldn’t like Mrs. Hawkins to take a bad view of you,” he said. 

Though Abigail would not challenge him, she thought it was instead fear that would not let him stay. But he had slept beside her, for a time; that could be enough. Then she surprised herself by saying, “Why don’t you come with me?”

“What?” 

“You’re on to London; I must get to Rosewood Park. We might go together. A distance of 30 miles, not so far out of your way — we might walk it.” She groped for a better reason than her own company. “Certainly, you’re like to get a better fare nearer newer roads.”

He said, stunned, “‘Fuck you talking about?”

“I want to spend more time with you,” she said, again eschewing dissimulation. “This affords me the opportunity. You might guard against thieves, and I’ll fund the venture, if you like.” Her remarks had been light-hearted, but were poorly taken, and she realized so too late, watching Billy’s face colour with embarrassment. But before the clouds of his temper burst, she said, “I don’t mean to make you beholden to me; you’d be doing _me_ the favour. Only that ‘twas so long between our meetings; I shouldn’t like to repeat it.”

He held his frown.

“Oh, Billy,” she said. “I’m not asking for the world, am I? Nor for you to debase yourself. Just come with me, so far as you can. But I won’t beg.” She bent to retrieve her shift from the floor and was not embarrassed to be naked before him. “And I should worry less of what Mrs. Hawkins think of me than of you.”

“Me?” He was stunned again

“She’s enamoured of you, of course,” said Abigail, capable of laughing over it now that her jealousy had been satisfied in her own favour. “Anyone could see.”

Billy, of all unexpected things, blushed pink even in his weatherbeaten face. “She never is. Lady with a business all her own, why’d she want a man?”

“You’d have to ask her,” said Abigail. “You’re nice to her boy, though.”

“I’ve not said one word to put that in her head, nor acted neither,” he said, stubborn.

“You hardly spoke to me, and look what we’ve become,” said Abigail. “Billy, you’ll laugh, but I was dreadfully jealous.”

“Jealous? Of Eliza Hawkins, who you met for the first time yesterday?” 

He was not teazing, nor plying her for praise; he was surprised and Abigail she thought she understood him, despite their time apart — and he a criminal, a pirate, a killer. He was more angry and skittish than she recalled, but plainly, too, he was tired and lonely, with a deeply rooted capacity for gentleness ( _I’m well. No pox and the like. I wouldn’t…_ ), if a poorly exercised one. But did trust between them whisper that he had only been gentle with her, or was that girlish naïveté, not to be relied upon? The hearts of men were fickle things, and only a fool believed a man’s violence might touch everything in his life but her. Only a fool would risk all that she stood to lose on a pirate. Yet despite a head for business Abigail had a heart that was superstitious and fanciful: why should she have travelled this way, in a coach gone astray and come to grief, to be deposited near a little-visited inn, if not so that she might find William Manderly in the Benbow’s poky parlour? 

Nor had she felt such a fluttering of joy since… Since she didn’t know when. The success of the fledgling _Proceedings of the Utopian Senate_ brought her great satisfaction, and her first significant expenditure upon coming into her inheritance (hectoring the local vicar into setting stones for Lord and Lady Hamilton, for though she’d have preferred London, she had no sway there) had been a balm to her spirit. But this fierce, animal joy… It was too much; it was not enough; it frightened her. She was a bold girl, and thwarted her aunt and uncle often, relying on their understanding that her continued independence preserved Rosewood for their own child. And yet, even so, she was pinned between competing impulses: the Hamiltons’ fate was a sword over her neck, a spectre of the dangers of defiance, but neither had her father’s slavish devotion to authority saved his life. She could rely on nothing but her own reason, hold herself accountable to nothing but her own conscience. All this she thought Billy could understand, if only they had time. She looked up from the rumpled bed, watched him swallow.

“I would like to,” he said, speaking each word slowly. “I’d like to come with you.”

“Thank you,” she said, simple and sincere.

He took his hand off the doorknob and instead of leaving as he might have, as he’d meant to, he crawled back into the bed, all limbs, and held her, and kissed her. For her own part, Abigail pressed every wish for him into her hands as she touched him, and did not think about what would happen when they were obliged to part ways. 

 

**A new use for men’s stockings — An innuendo — The _Proceedings of the Utopian Senate_ — What price political zeal? — Blood money**

Though they set a gentle pace and Abigail had abandoned her unfortunate heeled shoes, even in her slippers she was soon footsore, and on the first evening bathed her bloody toes in cool water. They slept rough that night, Abigail with her cardinal pulled tight around her and Billy’s scarlet cloak over them both, and when they woke, he pulled from his satchel a pair of ribbed stockings she might wear overtop, in which she walked far more comfortably, if not fashionably.

When they stopped for the second night, rough again, Billy said, “I must tell you something.”

Abigail put down the packet of bread they had purchased earlier from a farmer’s wife, the better to give him her full attention. “I was marooned for three years,” he said, not looking at her. “I don’t like to speak of it, but I felt you should know. Three years alone, three years with the Dutchmen who took me away, and time again, trying to get back here. It goes fast, all told.”

_Three years?_ She brimmed with questions she could not ask and overcome, said nothing, but tore away a hunk of bread and handed it him. He seemed thankful. “’Tis selfish of me to say, I know,” she said, tucked against him for warmth in the cool of the evening, “but you cannot know how glad I am to see you again. If our suffering brought us here, perhaps it is not so bad.” The words had seemed sensible up to the moment she gave them voice, and she feared he would shrink from her.

“Have you suffered?” He kissed her cheek, and tugged his cloak over them both once again. “I hate the thought of it. I imagined you in every finery.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint,” she said, embarrassed.

“I only meant I didn't like to hear you’d been unhappy. But as you say, it’s past now.”

They drew out the third day like the last of rations, halting far earlier than necessary in the mid-afternoon. “I cannot bang on the door at all hours, after all,” she said, knowing the excuse feeble. They were out rough still, Abigail not liking the chance of being recognized now that they drew so close to Rosewood. 

“No,” said Billy, as intentionally ignorant as she. “Better to wait.”

“I’d like to introduce you, and proudly.” Abigail was conscious that it was their last night of freedom and anonymity. Or hers, at least — she supposed Billy might go on being so free as long as he liked. It being so hard won in his youth, she knew he would never again let it go, not cheaply. 

“Ah, but you think it best,” he said, misunderstanding her, perhaps deliberately, “that your family not be subjected to me, the pirate menace.”

“You wound me,” said Abigail, and kissed him. Then with seriousness, she added, “‘Proudly,’ I said, and I meant it. But as you might have surmised even in your limited dealings with my father, my family are unpleasant people.” She frowned. “Indeed, I wouldn’t like to subject _you_ to _them_ , particularly when I have sent them no word of my journey and they expected me days ago. But I’ll present you as my saviour — as you are, my darling, though we shall misrepresent the circumstances.”

“Ah, she dissimulates,” said Billy, teasing, cheerful again, though Abigail thought he put it on for her benefit. “Never fear, I shall take you to the last.”

“I should hope so,” said Abigail, watching his face, and gratified by the way his eyes widened when she added, “but only when we’re alone.” 

“But before you rejoin polite society,” said Billy, shaking off his surprise,“you must tell me what you did to leave London under such a cloud. You have hinted, suggested, whispered these three days, but you have never said.” 

Abigail grimaced. She had indeed hinted at the disastrous party once or twice along the road, but had not yet brought herself to speak of it outright. 

“Well, go on.’Fuck you do to earn such mistreatment? Curtsied twice instead of once?”

He had come unwitting close to the mark, its triviality, and Abigail blurted, “Oh! Billy, I am ashamed to call it even half a misdemeanour.”

“Now you must tell me,” he said, laughing. “Go on, what terrible offence saw you banished from the fashionable drawing rooms. You boiled a baby? Wore the wrong colour?”

She sighed. “’Twas reckless; I ought not have done it.” When Billy drew up short to say, most obstinately, “Not another step until you tell me” and stand grinning with his arms across his chest, Abigail said, “I spoke against the hospitals, the madhouses, at a dinner party. A physician present took particular offence. I should have been called out, were I a man, I think.” She left out how she had shouted, how others in the room had stared, her rage at the vicious cruelty in the Dr. Williams’s descriptions of his lunatics; she did not regret her opinion, but instead her loss of self-control, so incautious. 

Billy blinked.

“You see, after what my father did, the wound is too close,” said Abigail. “My uncle was not happy to be coloured by my actions, and summer was coming on. I was sent home.” She sighed. “I am forever at their beck and call, even with money of my own. I should like to travel as I please — or not, if I please, but… I should not have done it. ’Twas ill temper, not practical; I shouted like a fury.”

Billy looked thoughtful. “If you broke with them, your family, just say that you could, where would you go?”

“I would stay in London,” she said, ready with her answer, for indeed she thought about it often. “I have no wish to go abroad again, nor travel these beastly roads again so long as I draw breath. Even to live very quietly in London, or in one of the port cities, Bristol — I’ve friends there — or Portsmouth. You will mock me, I think, but my father’s fortune is a horror to me, knowing now it was wrought with the blood of so many.”

“How else is money made? I can think of many that would kill for just the coin.” 

“As can I, I assure you. I…” She had been about to speak of Mr. Lowell, and all that made their arrangement possible. She trailed off, first doubting, then embarrassed that she had. “I presume upon your confidence, Billy.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, calculating. “You may.” Then, “I swear it.”

“I’ve a solicitor,” she said. “A Mr. George Wright, who was a great friend of my grandfather’s, my mother’s father as was, and who delighted in my mother while she lived. With his assistance, I sequester as much of my income as I can without arousing suspicion, and have done since I was able, though it has earned me a reputation for frivolity, for I must appear to spend it.”

Billy wrinkled his brow. “You… embezzle from yourself?”

She laughed. “I suppose you might say so, though Mr. Wright keeps me on the right side of the law. You see, though I have no immediate plans, I must be prepared.”

“You fear your relations?”

Abigail spoke bitterly. “What would not be done, for a bit of money? Only twenty years ago, Mr. Defoe documented the case of a gentlewoman who had established a savings of six-hundred pounds and whose relations conspired to commit her to the madhouse that they might annex it. The practice is appallingly common. And no doubt you have seen what greed does to the soul.” She thought of the Urca gold and the blood that stained it, of Ned Low and Charles Vane, of herself valued at two-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars or a warship, whichever came first, and thought Billy had too, for the way his gaze grew distant. 

“Do you have some intention for these funds? Some purpose beyond their simple preservation?” 

“Apart from my own security?”

Billy nodded.

“Again, I presume upon your confidence,” said Abigail, distantly wondering at her own foolhardiness. “Are you by any chance familiar with the _Proceedings of the Utopian Senate_?” Billy shook his head. Unchecked by his ignorance, Abigail continued with only a veneer of humility, for she was proud of what she’d done and longed to share it, having necessarily kept the work fiercely secret. “’Tis an anonymous account of the proceedings of Parliament, though of course we must filet the names and take particular caution with our gentlemen-scribes and in the housing of my press, in case of fines — or worse.”

Billy’s brow creased in thought once more. “The talk of Parliament, recorded? You take a great chance.”

Abigail frowned, irritated by interrogation when she had anticipated approbation. “A worthy chance.”

Billy frowned back. “But is there any interest among the common man for such a newspaper? What should Parliament concern him?” 

“It ought to,” she said, spirited. “For where else but in Parliament do the leaders of this country make the laws that would see a pirate swing, or tax the air and light, or permit a freeborn Englishman to be shut up in a madhouse without cause by his enemies? Should you not like to know who among your fellow men hold your life so cheap?”

Billy’s response flared like a burst of lightning: “Easy enough: all of them, of course! And if these are your true feelings, you might well be pleased to be banished to the country for an idle remark born of girlish fancy, rather than trip over your own pride to risk exposure as the silent partner in a seditious newspaper.”

“You mock me, and you doubt my conviction — and for sedition, a crime you’ve committed a dozen times over,” said Abigail, stung, frustrated that their cheerful exchange had so quickly grown so fraught. He had come from Levellers; she had counted on his support. “But to know my business is not to presume an invitation to comment upon it. You may think it little if it pleases you, but I know that it is not. If it mattered nothing to Parliament, if it had no value, was a trifle, my poor partner Mr. Lowell would not live in fear of reprisal upon his person or that of his wife and children. And yet he does!”

Billy pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was wrong to teaze. I don’t think poorly of your efforts, nor of you. I only sought to understand. I remember my parents’ fervour for their cause, and what it cost both them and me, and I recall myself as a boy of fourteen, distributing pamphlets with similar zeal. Zeal alone, belief… These are no match for strength or numbers.”

“And so we come full circle,” said Abigail, who strove to calm her features while within herself, wounded pride battled chastisement. “For zeal aside, though it might win superior numbers in time, I cannot let my fortune fund only those practices which rewarded my father’s treachery and ill grace.”

“You have spoken several times this way of your father,” said Billy. “Yet beyond his role in the death of Mrs. Barlow and his attempt to hang Flint, which I myself would have in a blink, ‘fuck he do to raise your ire?” Belatedly, he added, “Not that it weren’t enough, but you suggest his fortune was ill-gotten.” He made a face. “At least, more so than any other nobleman.”

Abigail was brought up short, and felt her mouth hang. Perhaps Mr. McGraw had been loath to share the truth of his affair with Lord Hamilton with his crew, or at least with a bosun who disliked him as much as Billy did, but she was surprised that her father’s misdeeds had not been relayed in some form to the pirate crew that had burned the coast of the New World in revenge against him. “May I show you? Come to the churchyard. I’ll show you, for the tale is long and concerns even yourself, if tangentially.”

Billy hesitated.

“Please? We’ll show our faces at the house, then walk out?” She did not like to feel a beggar and felt irritation creep into her features.

“Alright,” he said, still reluctant, “but I’ll tell you now, nothing good comes of my visiting fancy houses.” 

 

Her aunt and uncle were brusque, as expected: pleased to see her unharmed, to their credit, but eager to put the matter behind them. Their chilliness toward Billy (Mr. Billingsley, as introduced, at his insistence) extended even to a condescending offer of money, which he refused, holding Abigail’s gaze as he said that there was no price to the services he had rendered to the lady, though he wished sir and his family all health and happiness. (Those services, his eyes said to her alone, including making love to her at every opportunity between the Benbow and their first view of the park.) Abigail could not help but smile (demurely, behind her hand) even while she suspected he could well use the money, and as they stood in the drawing room, a plan began to form in her mind. Mr. Billingsley declined as well the offer of dinner, but accepted Abigail’s offer, much to her aunt’s unhappiness, to show him the park. Her plan was blooming bright and quickly; she did not want to lose him.

 

**Revelation — Savannah and its denizens — Separation**

“Who are these people?” Billy stood at her side, looking at the stones Peter Ashe’s money had purchased.

“Lady Hamilton was the woman you knew as Mrs. Barlow,” said Abigail, again surprised he did not know. She was eager to push past this contemplation of the past, eager to make her proposal. “I meant to honour them, for their sake and for Mr. McGraw’s. Their own families would not.”

“Flint,” said Billy, frowning.

“I respect your grievance,” said Abigail, “but whatever his reasons, he was kind to me. He saved my life.” It would not be wrong to tell Billy what she knew, she thought. What could it hurt, when all parties were dead or beyond reach? Besides, he was a pirate, a Nassau man; he would understand. “When I returned from Carolina” she said, “I sought to discover if Lord Hamilton were still alive, and if he was, if my father’s fortune might secure his release from the madhouse where he had been incarcerated.” 

Billy eyed her, weirdly intent. “Mrs. Barlow had no husband living.”

“So she believed, and Mr. McGraw too, but they had no way of knowing.” 

“Flint was her lover.”

Abigail bit her lip. “Be that as it may, Lord Hamilton and Mr. McGraw were lovers; for it he was sent to Bethlem, and Mr. McGraw and your Mrs. Barlow fled to Nassau.”

Billy rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “For this he would have burned the New World… ‘Fuck did you figure this out?”

“Some from Lady Hamilton,” said Abigail, “and some from listening at keyholes. I was there when my father’s man killed her; I felt a responsibility to her, and to her husband. But all the information I could purchase at Bethlem told me the same: that Hamilton wasn’t there.”

“Dead?”

She shook her head. “No: he survived. He was ransomed, in a sense, and made to disappear — somewhere in the New World, near Savannah. But he is well beyond my reach, and I thought it could not hurt to honour him here, though he is yet living, God willing, and I —“ She stopped, for Billy was shaking.

“That’s where he’ll be. No one ever saw the body, no one could tell me — no one would. Fuck!”

“What are you talking about?” She watched him pick up his satchel. “Where are you going?”

“Savannah,” he said. “I’m going to kill him.”

By then Abigail was trotting to keep pace with him. “Kill Hamilton? For God’s sake, why?”

“I don’t give a damn for Hamilton.” Billy’s long stride carried them toward the graveyard’s edge and the situation out of Abigail’s control. “You say Hamilton was his lover? Then that’s where he’ll be. Flint.” He was fierce. “I’ll not fail again”

When she reached for Billy’s arm to stay him, he shook her off. Turning her ankle on a stone, she could not fully suppress her yelp, but her stumble did not affect him, now some paces ahead of her. Abigail grit her teeth, braced herself against the expectation of pain, and threw herself forward. Though his advantage in height and weight was significant, she had surprised him, and brought him to the ground where he thrashed like an animal. “Stop it,” she cried, scrabbling for his hands, trying as best she could to restrain him with her knees. “Stop!”

At the second cry he went limp beneath her, flat against the ground like a dead thing, but that he panted for breath, his eyes squeezed shut and his cheeks wet with tears of anger. She collapsed against him, pressed her cheek against his chest and the sharp smell of him. “It’s been ten years, Billy. What is your vengeance worth to you, to pursue it hither and thither, across oceans, when you may find nothing of what you seek, even while you squander what I — what we might build together. Are you so fickle?” Billy had not yet opened his eyes, nor hardly moved. “Was our meeting for nothing? You might stay in England, stay with me.” That was all she had wanted to say, but her chance had gone wrong. She lay atop him, her fingers in his hair.

“He is all that is evil in this world,”he said, eyes still clamped shut. “All betrayal, all cruelty, all arrogance and tyranny. Yet I should release him to his happy fate, and stay with you?”

“You do not even know that he’s there,” said Abigail in desperation. “And happiness? Did you not see him when Lady Hamilton died?”

“Three years alone on that desolate spit, forgotten by my brothers, forgotten by God, until the goddamned Dutch arrived. Years more to play the idiot and still work myself out of their hold… Abigail, I staved off madness, true madness, not the fear of it that vicious husbands use to gaol their wives.”

“Did you think of me? Look at me; open your eyes.”

He did.

“When you were marooned, did you think of me at all?”

He nodded, slowly. 

“I thought of you,” said Abigail. “You were not forgotten. Not by me.”

“You think you know me? Don’t you want to know what I’ve been doing?” Billy was angry, fairly bristling, and Abigail saw for the first time how he would look to a true opponent, a man who faced him with violence. She held fast. “Well, don’t you? Answer me? Tell me what laws you think I’ve been breaking, what sins, what crimes? If you think I am still… What did you call it? A ‘sailor.’” 

Abigail’s hair had gone astray and clouded her vision; she pushed it back, behind her ear, and did not rise to his baiting. “First of all, I don’t think you’ve broken any laws, not any ones that matter. I think you grow weary of the man you’ve become, the man that looks as though he’d as soon strike me down as look at me. And second, your initial intentions for travel to London were clear: you are looking for your parents, of course. How could you think I’d forgotten?” She released him.

Billy sat up, hunchbacked and eyes unfocused. Abigail sat beside him, felt the crunch of dry leaves beneath her, the dampness of the ground. “They’re dead,” he said. “I’ve got a sister, but I was the oldest. I’d hardly know her. I couldn’t…”

She leaned her head on his shoulder, took his rough hand in hers and chafed it gently. “And you already lost your brothers.” He jerked his hand free, alert and angry again, but she put her hand to his cheek, cupped and held it there, and would not release him. “You were alone. So was I. Now we aren’t.” She closed her eyes, finding that she could not keep the courage to speak the words she sought and still look out onto the world, even on a sunny day in the English countryside. “Often, often enough that I couldn’t count, I wake in the night thinking that I am back on the _Good Fortune_ , and men are holding me down while Ned Low forces laudanum down my throat. I wake in the dark, and I cannot move, nor cry for help, only lay there and wait for it to pass.”

“What then, Abigail? I’ll take an honest trade and we’ll marry?”

“Why shouldn’t we?”

“Your people will forbid it.”

Abigail laughed aloud. “ _Now_ you decide that we must follow the dictum of society. I am of age. I shall tell you what I think.”

“I’d a feeling you would,” said Billy, sardonic. 

“Poor Mr. Lowell is in regular paroxysms of anxiety over the publication of the _Proceedings of the Utopian Senate_. He means well, my solicitor recommended him, but he has not the heart for my venture. I need a man of stronger nerve to manage my press. And you may exorcise every fury swimming in your chest through the printing press. Of course, we will have to take on honest business for the daylight hours, but there’s no helping that.”

“No, indeed,” said Billy, sardonic still.

“I’m quite serious,” said Abigail. “I will do this, somehow, with or without you, but I’d rather with.”

“Oh, my Abby,” said Billy, sadly now, anger flared out. He rose and slung his satchel over his shoulder. “But you see, I can’t forget.” He turned away. “I — Goodbye, love.”

She did not chase him again, her own pride would not let her, but she watched him go, and bit her fist to keep from screaming. She had offered him all that was precious to her; he had refused.

 

**Abigail lacks appetite — A clatter in the night — A long-forgotten sound — With gratitude to the washerwoman — The hearts and minds of men**

“Really, Abigail,” said her aunt that evening. “As if your situation in town were not precarious enough, you take it upon yourself to travel unattended in the most scurrilous fashion. It’s enough to drive me to despair for you, child.”

“I am eight-and-twenty, Aunt, and no longer a child,” said Abigail, “and I am surprised, frankly, that you have not yet despaired of me. If only my relations had not seen fit to leave me to the mercies of a hired coach” She was tired from her journey, footsore and aching, no longer exhilarated and already mourning Billy’s absence most painfully, and these conspired within her to snap the tenuous thread of her long-held patience. After her altercation with Dr. Williams she had sworn to mind her temper: she was forsworn now. “You surprise me, too, with your solicitous care for my reputation, for we both know very well that the more ineligible I become, the greater young Peter’s chances. I shall not come down for dinner.” Her aunt gaped, her uncle glowered, and Abigail went upstairs alone. 

All her adult years she had not slept well, and the night that followed was no exception. She fell briefly into a fitful sleep in which she dreamt she had been incarcerated in Bethlem, though it looked much like the Benbow and hosted Vane as her captor, and later awoke alone in the dark, heart pounding, laden with the dust of the road and the graveyard, and still in her worn travelling clothes, sweat-soaked jumps included. As often when she woke thus, she was too frightened to move, even to ring for a servant. In the dim glow of moonlight she made out only the shapes of the furniture, the untouched dinner tray her uncle had sent up, and she cursed herself for a fanciful fool. At the rustle of cautious steps outside the door, she presumed the steward creeping by in an attempt to leave her undisturbed. Then the doorknob turned, and she sat up in bed, groping for her shawl to pull about her shoulders, and was briefly blinded by lantern light. When her eyes cleared, she found her uncle, flanked by two men she did not recognize, one slender and smartly dressed, the other rough and almost as tall as Billy, broad-shouldered and muscular. 

“Pray, Abigail, do not exert yourself,” said her uncle, in a crooning tone might use on horses. He looked to the smartly dressed man. “You see, doctor, that my niece is unwell: febrile, disturbed, her hair loose about her shoulders.”

“Uncle, ‘tis nighttime, and you disturb me at my rest,” said Abigail, heart pounding as she cast about the room. If she survived throwing herself from the window, where might she run, barefoot in her nightclothes? It seemed a nightmare clamped upon her chest, yet more real than any dream. 

“Oh! A wicked thing,” said her uncle. “Her disturbance causes her to be…” He dropped his voice. “Unchaste. I called you too late: she wandered the countryside unattended before we could have her safely home.”

“I was stranded,” cried Abigail, to no avail; her mind leapt to thoughts of Billy, marooned.

“Further,” her uncle continued, “I am told she was seen today in congress with a man — yes, and nowhere but in the parish graveyard.” The physician gasped and Abigail thought with pain of Billy’s agony there, and her own. “Gentlemen, make haste,” said her uncle, blocking the door with his body. 

“You tell abominable lies,” said Abigail, springing from her bed, “and you shall find my liberty very dear.” Scrabbling in her nightstand, she seized a letter opener, but managed only a superficial scratch to the arm of the physician before the second stranger struck her hard across the back, stealing her wind and loosing the blade from her grasp. He forced her wrists together, binding them with the metal violence of manacles, but though panting, shocked, she twisted in their grip even as they wrestled her down the stairs. “Where is my aunt?” Her elbow, for her arms were bound in front of her, connected with some place tender enough to exhort a sharp exhale, but she was held tight as ever, then thrown over her captor’s shoulder. “My aunt would not stand by. She would not permit this. Where is she?”

“The girl’s disease has driven my lady wife from her own home,” said her uncle.

“Rosewood was my home and hers before me, before you ever came here,” said Abigail. No one paid her any mind. 

“She and our child have removed to Bath this very night, the better to preserve the health of our son.”

“Rightly done, my lord,” said the doctor. 

“This is falsehood,” Abigail said, scrabbling again, clinging to the lintel of the front door. The physician brought his fist down upon her fingers, and she howled and lost her grip. Her captor clamped his own hand over her mouth and nose, enough to choke her. 

“Begging your pardon, sirs,” said the man, “but I thought as she would be dosed.” 

_The meal._ But Abigail, dispirited and lonely, had not touched the tray. Sudden, painful clarity told her that Mr. Harrison the coachman, like her poisoned cup, had been the product of her uncle’s feigned solicitousness. He had introduced her to Dr. Williams, too; she had thought him clumsily blocking her conversation with more eligible gentlemen. Had he grown tired of waiting, meant to disgrace and discredit her all along? Regardless there was no one to lend her aid. The servants, poor wretches, would not — could not — speak or act in her defence, and Billy… Billy was gone! She bit her captor’s hand, drawing blood into her mouth, and screamed before she was struck again, the man cursing her. If she escaped, could she run to the village? They were as unlikely as the staff to stand for her, yet their presence might deter her uncle, for shame’s sake. Yet he did not know of the _Proceedings_ , she thought — indeed, she was almost certain. 

“She did not take the physic,” said her uncle, now paled — for fear of her carryings-on, Abigail hoped. “Silence her.”

“He commits a crime against my person and my liberty,” she said, and thumped her bound hands against her captor’s back. “Release me, for the sake of yourselves as Christian men, I beg you.” Their miserable troop in entirety was silenced by a sound Abigail did not at first recognize: the shattering report of a pistol. Cast over her captor’s shoulder, she could not see, but she could hear.

“That was a warning,” said Billy. “Release the lady.” The physician and his lackey were mercenary men, and their valuation of their own lives handily outstripped her uncle’s bribes, though the lackey unceremoniously threw Abigail to the hard ground where she cried out, unable to break her fall with her arms bound. Lifting her head, she watched Billy drew a second pistol. “Ride away,” he said, and the two fled. “Abby, can you stand?”

The physician had thrown the key at her feet and she struggled to loose the manacles as she staggered to her feet, wheezing, to creep toward him.

“Do you need anything from the house?” He had not lowered his gaze or his weapon. 

The manacles clattered to the ground. Abigail thought her uncle had not moved, but she feared to look back. _Clothing, shoes, provisions, her books, the little portrait of her mother… Oh! Her sketch of Billy, kept so long! Lost!_ She did not have the breath to speak, so shook her head. 

“Give her your coat,” said Billy.

“I take no orders from a common criminal,” said her uncle, with a terrible detached venom (he was very still, but his gaze flicked about, his breathing shallow). “‘Billingsley,’ hey? I should have known her deceitful and devious.” He glared, but when Billy gestured with the pistol added, spitting, “Take the whore, then. I wish you joy of her, and a clear path for my son.”

Abigail laughed: he cared for nothing but lineage. She trembled on the edge of hysterics, but at least Mr. Lowell could have nothing to fear.

“There are whores at their trade in Nassau, sir,” said Billy, “who surpass you entirely in character. Your coat now, or your life.”

He shed his coat, and threw it to the ground. Abigail picked it up and drew it over her shoulders, shivering uncontrollably. 

“Go inside and lock the door,” said Billy. He went, the lock sounded, and Billy at last turned to her, weapon lowered and the terrible violence gone from his eyes. 

“I don’t know how to thank you,” said Abigail, teeth chattering. 

He shook his head, a flicker of some emotion Abigail could not parse travelling his face. “It’s not a matter for thanks. My Abby, can you walk? We’ve got to put distance between us and this place.”

She vomited onto the steps, then suffered Billy to help her slip her arms into her uncle’s coat, and to hold her elbow as she walked on shaking legs. 

“When,” she said, “did you become so familiar with the whores of Nassau?”

Billy laughed, a surprised burst, and pulled her closer. “Why, they helped us overthrow the governor, of course. Jealous again? How lucky I am. Oh, I told you nothing good comes of me visiting fancy houses.”

 

Some time later, having reached the road proper, Abigail pulled Billy to the side, then into the trees. “Can we hide here a moment? Can we rest?” 

He nodded, and they sheltered there, out of sight of the road. “I don’t think we’ll be sought,” he said. “Your uncle has achieved his end, if not how he meant to.”

“It had been my greatest fear, to be so ill used,” said Abigail. “To be betrayed utterly, as Hamilton was, and locked away.” She thought she felt sanguine enough, yet strangely distant from all before her, even with Billy so warm and solid at her side. “And still taken by surprise.”

“But you’re secure, aren’t you?” Billy looked alarmed. “Should we have stopped longer at the house? I will take care —” 

She put her hand to his mouth to silence him, and the shock of closeness was still enough to startle. “My papers, yes, and my mother’s jewellery, and my accounts, all with Mr. Wright. Oh!” The realization struck her as a lightning bolt. “Billy, we must marry.”

He started himself, and pushed her hand away. “’Fuck are you talking about? We’re running for our lives, and you want to marry?”

He did not understand, but Abigail was patient. “England’s is a foul system,” she said, “but you must be my keeper. To the law, at least.” He stared blankly. “Don’t you see? He could not claim my fortune if you claimed it first.” She was of age; it would be unusual, but not illegal, surely. 

Billy chewed his lip. “Abby, I’ll do whatever you ask. Truly, I will, but…”

“What is it?”

“You despise your father’s fortune, while through your own economy you are secure. You own your press?” She nodded. “I see no reason you should free yourself of your father’s name only to take mine in exchange.” He flushed, then added hurriedly, “Anyway, I don’t want to leave you, unless you send me away. Because I could keep us…” He seemed to catch himself, then continued, “I left you last night, only last night by God, but I couldn’t leave altogether. Hid myself and watched the house and felt like Jacob wrestling the angel. Then I heard you scream.” He pulled her close, held her tightly.

Dawn pressed its pink fingers through the trees. Abigail’s limbs were heavy, and the blows she had received throbbed heartily on each heartbeat. 

Gently, Billy examined her fingers, kissed her palm. “No breaks. Abby, I do love you.”

“We must go on,” said Abigail, dazed, “or I will become quite immovable.” She yawned. 

“You can rest,” said Billy. “I’ll watch. The weather is fine and the trees hide us well enough.”

She shook her head. “No, no. As far as we can go, please.”

“Well, you take my stockings again, then, and soon we’ll have to stop, with no explanation for your nightdress and men’s coat.” He tied his stockings at her knees, then helped her stand. “Lean on me. There’s no shame in it. I’ve seen men as untested as you show nothing of your mettle, and they were armed. Lean on me and we’ll gain what ground we can.”

They spoke little after that, trudging through the dawn, until they came upon a little farmhouse. Billy deposited Abigail at the side of the road, where she struggled to maintain consciousness while he obtained permission to rest a time in the stable, then returned to surreptitiously effect Abigail’s concealment in the same. “’Tis not the Benbow,” he said, “but it ought to serve.” Abigail collapsed on the straw.

 

She slept for several hours — until noon, by Billy’s estimation. He left briefly, then, though soon returned with victuals and an armful of women’s clothing, purchased from an enterprising washerwoman for the price of Abigail’s uncle’s coat. The food beat back Abigail’s encroaching nausea, and the fog that had dulled her senses since her near-kidnapping — the second in her life! It was unjust! — had, blissfully, retreated, though her arms and shoulders ached, and Billy reported a fierce bruise spread across her back, for she had needed his help to dress, though she had at least freed herself of her filthy jumps. Not twelve hours had passed since her ignominious departure from Rosewood, yet she felt reborn. She lived, and her private accounts were secure: even alone she might prosper, and she was not alone. “I have broken with them,” she said at last, surprised by the disbelief in her voice.

“I want to do as you suggested,” said Billy slowly. “If you’ll still have me. Married or no, it’s no difference to me, no matter what we tell others.”

“In keeping with this country’s goddamned moral proscriptions?” He laughed, as she’d hoped he would, but she herself remained sober. “I remember now, this morning: you said you loved me. Billy, do you renounce revenge?”

“If I hadn’t, you’d be beyond my help now, beyond anyone’s.” He shuddered. “I renounce it.” He looked again to the floor. “It was my life. But I will try.” She saw that his face was wet again.“My Abby, I’m sorry.”

Abigail fumbled for a handkerchief, recalled she had none, then brushed his tears away with the back of her hand. “Myself, I was parsimonious. I said no dissimulation, and still I was not honest with you, meting out my little secrets one drop at a time, never saying how…” She swallowed, painfully. “How I love you too, my darling.” He shuddered again, emotion travelling his body like a bullet might, and she made her voice cheerful, to encourage him, “But now we shall try everything we ever dreamed of building. Building, not destroying — no houses burned, no towns put to the sword, no bullets or knives. Billy, love, the pen and the hearts and minds of men, as of women… Mightn’t we do it? Mightn’t we try?”

He closed his strong arms around her. “With respect, it still sounds madness. But yes, we shall.”

She answered him with a kiss. “I must send some letters to my solicitor, and both he and my press are in London.”

“To London, then,” said Billy, “but we must first return to the Benbow. I don’t trust my sea chest alone on the road, and perhaps yours is yet there as well. And then we must talk. I — It is not a secret necessarily, Abby, but it must wait.” He smiled, and Abigail did not pursue the matter, they having many years yet in which to do so. 

 

**Mrs. Hawkins’s hopes are disappointed — A friend — The sea chest — Brother! — Journey’s end**

They walked back to the Benbow — why shouldn’t they, now they had all the time in the world? — and to Abigail, fanciful again, it seemed a way of spooling back their missteps and disappointments: a new beginning. 

Billy asked, as they drew up toward the little inn, “Did you give your name to Eliza Hawkins, your full name?” 

“I did, but it meant very little to her,” said Abigail. “The lot of them were hard-pressed to think of Rosewood at all, and I did leave off titles. If she’s thought of me at all, I’m sure ’tis only as a poor cousin of an unknown family far from here.” She frowned. “But I did play as though I did not know you.”

“I suppose I’ll dash her hopes,” said Billy, looking at the ground. “If what you thought was true. Unless you want… Well, I suppose that’s what I’m asking you.”

Abigail, confused, said, “What _are_ you asking me?”

“How we shall relate to one another,” said Billy, still watching his shoes.

Abigail weathered a wave of tender feeling at his unexpected bashfulness, so out of step with all else of his character. “With little more than a week gone, I suppose it’s not enough time to be married, even if we’d raced to Scotland and back again. My God, a week!” She gave a nervous laugh at the thought of all so irrevocably said and done in so little time. 

“But we might die tomorrow, after all,” said Billy. He took her hand in his. “We must not waste time.”

 

They spent more than a week at the Benbow, in the end, waiting for the next stagecoach: a week of more contentment than Abigail could have thought to wish for. Passing herself off as a governess having left Rosewood Park to marry Billy, Abigail found she could converse easily with Mrs. Hawkins, whose restrained disappointment at Billy’s ineligibility was tempered by her sincere pleasure that someone as near a titled lady as she had ever seen had seen the man’s merits. Even the apparent speed of their courtship did not faze the good woman, so certain was she of Billy’s virtues that her conviction extended even to her erstwhile rival. One evening, while Billy and Jim undertook to replace those sections of ceiling and floor rotted out by leaks, Abigail and Eliza took a glass of sack in the kitchen.

“I hope you won’t mind me saying,” said Abigail, nervous but sincere, “that your speaking well of Mr. Manderly meant a great deal to me.”

“Ah, well, I spoke the truth.” The response was guarded, vulnerable. 

Abigail did not rightly know how to apologize for something she did not regret, yet knew had caused distress. She said, “Ah.” Then, “Please forgive my boldness, but I know no other way than directly: I have caused you pain, and I regret it.”

Eliza pinked, and Abigail feared she had misstepped, but the woman sipped her drink, then said at last, “I would not marry again.” She nodded, seeming to better believe herself now that she had spoken. “No, I would not. I should rather a bit of loneliness than to lose my husband a second time, and… Well, he’s a sailor, after all. But…” She gave Abigail a little smile. “A woman still might fancy otherwise, from time to time. A sailor, yes… I know what it is like to feel the urge for haste, when you might lose him again so quickly.” 

This gentle, tacit approval of what was, from the viewpoint of any sensible bystander, a near-scandalous elopement, warmed Abigail extremely. “Would you…” She trailed off. “Well, I shall leave it in your hands, and if you do not wish, I pray you will never think of it again, but might you write to me? I should like to have news of a… a friend.”

Eliza brightened considerably, melancholy fading. “Let me know of your direction, and I surely will.”

 

The stagecoach arrived, and Abigail and Billy set out for London (though with many uncomfortable days between them and their destination), where Mr. Wright, Abigail having written ahead, had obtained for them the lease on a small home in Kensington. With the initial shocks of her liberty fading with her bruises amid the fresh indignities of long travel, Abigail cast her active mind to the future: Eliza’s friendship, her press, their little home, and a better future. _Augusta Triumphans_ , indeed! Why should they not make London the greatest city in the universe? 

And in their little corner of that great city, Billy set his sea chest down in the drawing room, yet bare of furniture, and called her name with a strange tone of fear and apprehension. “I don’t come to you empty-handed,” he said. “I could not have accepted what you’ve proposed if I did, no matter how I might want to.” He forestalled her objection. “My Abby, I do love you, but I could not.” He gave a little smile. “But that is not the case, so ’fuck should it concern us?” He took a key from around his neck. “I did not mean for this to be a secret, and certainly not one born of greed. Only that you’re at least as proud as me: I know you could never stand to be bought.” He opened his sea chest, and removed a shirt, a sextant, a packet of letters, and then a little canvas bag. The last he passed to Abigail, who opened it, peered inside, and was struck speechless. “It and I were marooned in the same place.” He shrugged, almost shy. “It was not so very hard, and I had much time — time to mark out where Flint went ashore, and how far he might have travelled with a heavy trunk in no more than half a day. Time to search…” He gently retrieved the bag from Abigail’s stiff, shocked fingers, and restored it to his trunk, which he then locked once more. “But I have seen it drive men mad, Abby. Seen it with my own eyes. I took very little…”

Abigail coughed, her mouth gone very dry.

“Very little of what was there.” He smiled. “Keeping it from the Dutchmen was the more difficult. Well, shall we be partners, then?”

She threw her arms around his neck, laughing. 

 

Later, with her hand tucked into the crook of Billy’s arm, she walked with him along the cobbled streets of Kensington, having been advised of the  direction of one Mrs. Caroline Cooper, formerly Caroline Manderly.

“She’s like as not to remember nothing of me,” Billy said, quiet and fierce. “Or just as much to wonder, as a good Englishwoman might, what I’ve come to all these years.”

“But if she is at home,” said Abigail, pressing herself against his side, “you might look upon her at no risk to yourself and then make your decision. You would be bitterly disappointed if we were to now turn back.” 

The house approached: on the stoop, Billy lifted his hand, held it above the door… Knocked smartly.

Billy had guessed Caroline four or five when he was pressed, and though her face some twenty years later was no child’s, and wind-chapped, Abigail thought her a smart-featured girl — bright eyes, an honest smile — with one child at her feet and an infant on her hip. She had thrown open the door, then gaped at them, and after a silence said,“Saints! Forgive me, I thought you were my Ned, a sailor, due home any day now.”

“Are you Caroline Cooper, then?” Billy was brusque, peering at her. “Caroline Manderly, as was?”

“Why, yes,” she said, peering back at their strange pair. The babe began to squall, and she hushed it absently. “You are?”

Abigail felt Billy stiffen beside her, his desire to flee, while she held herself still and said nothing.

“Callie,” said Billy, hoarse. “I’m your brother, William, and it has taken me these twenty years to come home.”

The babe squalled; its mother blanched, then turned and disappeared into the house, leaving the door creaking on its hinge. Billy trembled at Abigail’s side. “Oh, come away,” she said, distraught for him. “We won’t linger, come away.” She took him by the hand, but they were only a few paces gone when Caroline cried out behind them.

“Oh! Brother, wait! Brother!”

Abigail caught her breath: Billy had not been called so in a terrible long time. _Brother._

“I didn’t mean to shy from you,” said Caroline, breathing heavily. “Only to fetch… Our mother’s prayers are answered, God rest her soul. I keep this over the fireplace, just as she did.” She held out her hand, where rested a tiny portrait, no bigger than her palm, of a child.

“I remember this,” said Billy. “I was the oldest…”

Caroline embraced him, rising on her toes to reach. “Brother, you are home at last. I do remember you, Billy dear. Mother made sure I did.”

***

**Mr. Oglethorpe receives a packet — _Les mille et une nuits_ — The folly of youth — To bed**

Dear Mr. Oglethorpe,

May our Lord smile on your efforts in the New World, sir, and I pray He bless your work and your honourable Self. I expect no reply to this l tr , well do I understand your desire to preserve the privacy of your Patrons and those Men who do rely upon you for their daily Bread. But in God’s name, sir, I do most humbly beg your indulgence, that should Lord Hamilton serve on your plantation you might share with him the Enclosed, news of some he once called Friend.

Your servant,

Lady Abigail Ashe

***

Dear Lord Hamilton,

You shall not, I expect, recall much of me, or if you do, little more than the girl-child of he who once pretended to your friendship, my father, Lord Peter Ashe. Yet the course of your Life has shaped mine own most closely. Your esteemed wife, sir, and your Friend, Mr. James McGraw, saved my Life in the Bahamas at exorbitant personal cost, and delivered me safely to my treacherous Father’s side. Knowing now of his misdeeds, I am daily th fl that I fell into the hands of those more like yourself than my own Blood could ever claim. 

I write to tell you, sir, that I live, as does Mr. Wm. Manderly, and of my sincere wish that our names might hold some meaning for you. Too I wish to tell you that a stone has been erected in the Rosewood parish for yourself and for Lady Hamilton. I pray it does shew my Gratitude, and that God has blessed you, that you might live in health of body and peace of spirit amongst Friends. Wm. and I seek the same on England’s shores, and think we shall neither of us part from them a gn . 

If I might be so bold, I shall further add that we count ourselves among those seeking the most fundamental Reform to the Hospitals of England, and I beg your leave to do so, in my heart if not in voice, in your Name and that of your est md Wife.

I pray this letter find you as it leaves me, with myself,

Your most humble and obedient servant,

Abigail Ashe

***

Thomas Hamilton read the short letter — the first he had ever received at Oglethorpe’s plantation — quickly and silently, then passed it to James McGraw, who read it in his turn. For a time, then, neither of them spoke.

“I remember this woman,” Thomas said at last. “Or the child, at least.”

“Billy survived,” said James, rubbing his chin. “Well, fuck me.”

To an outsider, Thomas supposed, their respective remarks would have rung incongruous, but they two knew each other’s minds well. The slow-moving equilibrium of their days, the labour itself often taxing to the point of dreamless sleep, even for James, had been sharply disrupted by the mysterious packet, a fragment of each of their separate pasts entangled. Never mind that Thomas, by sheer force of will, would not often think of Bethlem.

As though sensing his unease, James put one broad, warm hand on his thigh, its soothing weight a comfort. 

“This Manderly,” said Thomas. “He’s the Billy Bones you’ve told me of?” James nodded. Thomas placed his own hand over James’s and pressed it gently.

“Did she tell him stories?” The question was rhetorical, more relevant to their own pairing than the life of Peter Ashe’s child and James’s old adversary; they had no way to know. Thomas spoke of something else, and knew that James understood: the way the two men had for months after their reunion lain each night in one cramped bed, set apart from the others (all deeply fond of, and loyal to, Thomas, the men of Oglethorpe’s plantation wilfully turned from any sight or deed that might be deemed unsavoury and so play havoc with their friend’s happiness) and wrapped around each other even in the horrid wet heat, speaking of their separation, words pouring forth until they collapsed into sleep even as their tongues shaped their next syllables. There was never enough time, but they had to try. _Mille et une nuits_ , Thomas had whispered one night, and kissed James’s mouth, and they’d amused themselves trying to recite from memory as much of the Galland as possible, in-between kisses and caresses. _Ne dormez pas, je vous supplie, en attendant le jour qui paroitra bientôt, de me raconter un de ces beaux contes que vous savez._ ( _Do not sleep, I beg you, and while waiting for the day to appear, tell me one of those beautiful tales that you know.)_

It was not merely sexual. Until James’s arrival, Thomas had not been touched with love, nor any decent human feeling — indeed, naught but indifference at best, even cautious aloofness from his new friends, and violence at worst — since he had kissed Miranda goodbye and implored her to marshal her courage. He was not naïve and James was not dishonest: Thomas knew many had died at his lover’s hands, not least of all his own father, but he knew too the inestimable and undeniable pleasure of James’s presence at his side, in the fields, in Oglethorpe's library, or in bed; James’s hands to banish the knots in his shoulders or to wipe clean his forehead when he started from the claws of nightmares he could not recall; the pleasure of James’s company, the all-consuming joy of it. By the time he had learned of Ashe’s betrayal — when the fool had come to him in Bethlem to beg forgiveness, Thomas supposed he ought to have, had to have, known — he had been too weary to burn with the rage that had afflicted James. But Miranda’s fate… That would have been too much to bear alone.

“Why do you think she sent this letter, short as it is? I’ve not your talent for discerning hidden meanings.” Thomas retrieved the letter, squinting at it as though that might compel the lady herself to appear before them and offer an explanation. His vision was not so good as it had been, in low light, at least. Their responsibilities at the plantation, indeed, had changed with the years: several days in the week he and James now both set to schooling those who would learn. James, who was well-learned and bookish by nature if not permitted to be so by providence, took particular pleasure in the work.

The man himself shook his head. “There is no dissimulation there,” he said, thoughtfully. “I confess, I thought little of the girl after I left Charles Town. My thoughts were otherwise occupied.” He retrieved and pressed Thomas’s hand. “Still, I orphaned her.”

“You orphaned me,” said Thomas, speaking plainly. “Not everyone regrets such things. And if she is, as she implies, of, er, unusual political leanings, she may not begrudge you.” He brandished the letter. “She called her own father treacherous. Spirited girl!” 

“She seems to have been looking for you,” said James. “She was a brave girl, given her background and what she’d seen — and, God knows, given the man she’s chosen — but she clung to Miranda like a chick to a hen from Nassau to Carolina. She’s settling accounts, it seems to me.”

“She’s young,” said Thomas, rising from his seat to stretch, and was gratified, if not surprised, that James knew just what he meant. 

“She thinks everything might be closed off and settled, that she might quiet every clamouring demon.” James sighed. “Well, why shouldn’t she try? She may yet do better than we did.”

Thomas stooped to kiss the top of his head. “Come to bed, love.”

**Author's Note:**

> A public record of parliamentary debates was controversial in England for at least two centuries, with journalists who sought to publicize such records facing fines, harassment, and legal consequences. To get around these obstacles, aside from printing anonymous tracts, publishing columns in men's magazines, or using semi-private diaries (e.g., those of Members who liked to preserve their own speeches and/or whatever other discussions they found interesting), moderately censored or anonymized accounts of parliamentary debates were published under fantastical names such as the "Proceedings of the Lower Room of the Robin Hood Society" or the "Debates of the Senate of Magna Lilliputia." (The latter first appeared in a men's magazine in 1732, and I have taken the liberty of letting Abigail's "Proceedings of the Utopian Senate" precede this by a few years.)
> 
> In 1810, almost a century after the action of this story, William Cobbett, already disliked by the British government for his work in publishing parliamentary debates, was charged with seditious libel for an article critical of the government, written by Cobbett and published by Thomas Curson Hansard. The Hansard family, however, continued to publish records of parliamentary debates, and when the British government finally brought the work in-house in 1909, the record became informally known as Hansard. Such records, now common enough to be presumed upon, continue to go by this name in the United Kingdom and in other Commonwealth countries, and are comparable to the Congressional Record in the United States and the CRE in the European Union.
> 
> Please feel free to visit me on [Tumblr](https://andloawhatsit.tumblr.com/tagged/lmeunfic).


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